1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a control device for an internal combustion engine and, more particularly, to a control device for an internal combustion engine, which uses a processor having a plurality of cores to perform operations.
2. Description of Related Art
As described in, for example, Published Japanese Translation of PCT application No. 2009-541636 (JP 2009-541636 A), there is known an engine control unit that has a plurality of execution units (cores) and that controls an internal combustion engine. The engine control unit distributes tasks to the plurality of execution units to execute parallel arithmetic processing. Specifically, in a mode for improving responsiveness, different programmes (programs) or tasks are subjected to parallel arithmetic processing. In addition, in a mode for increasing the safety of signal processing, parallel arithmetic processing in which the plurality of execution units execute the same program is performed.
Incidentally, in recent years, in an internal combustion engine that uses a control model, an increase in computational load at a high rotational speed range is problematic. Therefore, in a control range in which a computational load is high, tasks may be distributed to a plurality of cores to perform parallel arithmetic processing to thereby reduce the computational load. However, on the other hand, in a control range in which a computational load is low, in terms of suppressing heat generation and avoiding complex arithmetic processing due to task distribution, arithmetic processing may be performed by minimizing the number of cores used. However, in the above described existing system, task distribution is not performed on the basis of the controlled state of the internal combustion engine in parallel arithmetic processing. Therefore, a computational failure due to omission of a task in a high rotational speed range, heat generation in a low rotational speed range, or the like, may occur, so there is still room for improvement.